[FSFE PR][EN] AGNULA: a "vivid ecosystem" for developers and users of free multimedia software

[Joachim Jakobs]

<>"For big sound studios it would be certainly interesting if they
could adapt their audio software to their individual needs.
Currently, if they require changes, they need to ask their software
developer first. That costs both time and money", says Michael
Spiess, a sound engineer in the South Bavarian town of Babensham.

For the little village band, continues Spiess, the freedom to use the
software for whatever purpose they want is certainly an advantage.
"There's a lot of software for Windows, but there is also a large
amount of rubbish. Professional applications run on GNU/Linux and
on Apple. Hobby musicians in particular are frequently forced to
improvise. Traditional systems do not allow this."

'Creating artistic licence by Free Software technology' might have
been the motto of AGNULA (A GNU/Linux Audio distribution -
www.agnula.org): within the scope of the EU project two GNU/Linux
distributions for Debian and Red Hat were developed that are targeted
specifically at professional musicians and multimedia authors.
"AGNULA constitutes a very vibrant environment for musicians",
states project leader Nicola Bernardini. The available applications
include a synthesizer and a graphical user interface for "CSound" -
(free) sound software written in C. The technical leader Andrea
Glorioso sees AGNULA as an "ecosystem" of developers and users:
"We need the experience of the user in order to fix problems in using
the system. Therefore it is of great importance to convince as many
developers and users as possible of the advantages of Free Software.
The more people participate in this ecosystem, the more rapidly it can
develop. For this reason AGNULA needs to reach the critical
mass of developers and users as soon as possible."

AGNULA also wants to set a legal example for other Free Software
projects: For Georg Greve, president of the Free Software Foundation
Europe (FSFE) it is particularly important to avoid the contamination
of the AGNULA collection of Free Software by "proprietary software".
According to Greve, "this establishes a 'freedom seal of approval' for
users, who get the guarantee that with AGNULA they will always get
the full freedom."

The following institutions participated in the project (04/01/2002 -
04/01/2004):
* IRCAM Institut de Recherche et Coordination Acoustique/Musique -
Paris
* Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Music Technology Group - Barcelona
* Kungl Tekniska Högskolan (KTH), Music Acoustics Group - Stockholm
* Free Software Foundation Europe
* Red Hat France
-- 
Joachim Jakobs <jj at office.fsfeurope.org>
Press Speaker - FSF Europe (http://fsfeurope.org)
In der Roede 24, 64367 Mühltal(Tel: +49-179-6919565)